What is Node.js and why should I care? An operations guy searches for answers.

As an operations guy I really don’t keep up with the latest and greatest when it comes to software development. I often hear developers discussing new languages or libraries but rarely care enough to jump in and figure out why it’s important to me. I’ve heard a lot of discussion about Node.js and seen many tweets, blogs, and articles that reference the term but up until now I haven’t really had the need or desire to jump in and figure out why it’s important.

Why Now?

There are three main reasons why I’ve chosen to learn about Node.js right now:

Now that Node.js is starting to show up seemingly everywhere (everywhere I spend my digital time anyway) I am compelled to really dive in and learn about this rapidly advancing platform.

Node.js adoption is growing at a rapid pace and operations staff need to know what is coming so they can be prepared for it.

So here is what I have found out about Node.js:

I started my journey at nodejs.org Here is their definition right from their homepage; “Node.js is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.”

Question: Isn’t JavaScript a browser side capability? Are we talking about building fast, scalable applications for a web browser? Building scalable applications for web browsers doesn’t make any sense to me.

The Mozilla post explains that JavaScript was originally intended to be both a browser AND server side technology. It also explains that Node.js is a server side implementation of JavaScript and is also single threaded. Even more interesting.

Realization #2: Node.js is used to build server side applications.

This information brings up an important question; Isn’t it a bad thing to have a single threaded application server if you want high scalability? I had to do more research.

Maybe this statement is related to overcoming the single threaded nature “event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.”

First I need to understand what “event-driven” means. The definition itself is quite easy to understand. There is a lot of information about event driven programming available on the web but I liked this description from a Princeton University page the best:

“In computer programming, event-driven programming or event-based programming is a programming paradigm in which the flow of the program is determined by events—i.e., sensor outputs or user actions (mouse clicks, key presses) or messages from other programs or threads.

Event-driven programming can also be defined as an application architecture technique in which the application has a main loop which is clearly divided down to two sections: the first is event selection (or event detection), and the second is event handling. In embedded systems the same may be achieved using interrupts instead of a constantly running main loop; in that case the former portion of the architecture resides completely in hardware.

Event-driven programs can be written in any language, although the task is easier in languages that provide high-level abstractions, such as closures. Some integrated development environments provide code generation assistants that automate the most repetitive tasks required for event handling.”

Realization #3: The Node.js platform provides abstractions that make it easier to create event-driven applications.

This realization raised a question in my mind; Is it better, faster, or more scalable to use event-driven programming instead of multi-threaded programming? As it turns out, trying to answer this question is like falling down a never-ending rabbit hole. There are a ton of arguments on both sides and nothing that swayed me in either direction. It seems like one of those choices where you use what works better for your circumstance. Sorry, but you’ll have to figure out whether multi-threaded or event-driven is better for you on your own.

Moving onto the last part of the Node.js definition… “lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.”

I’m going to have to trust that it is lightweight and efficient since I am not a developer but the last part of the definition (distributed devices) has me asking another question: How do you scale a Node.js application?Distributed implies a horizontal scaling methodology, and as we discovered earlier Node.js is single threaded so it can only use 1 CPU at any given time. How do you scale Node.js is the real world when you have a massive spike in workload? I found my answer in this excellent blog post http://cjihrig.com/blog/scaling-node-js-applications/. I’ll summarize here: Node.js has functionality you can use to have multiple processes listen on the same port. Each individual process can use a single CPU so you can scale out a multi-CPU server by using multiple processes. You can also take advantage of scaling across multiple host by using a reverse proxy, load balancing web server. This is more traditional clustering so it should be familiar if you have experience running distributed applications. Another important part of scaling Node.js is making sure you use Node to only server the dynamic content while offloading static content distribution to either a web server like nginx or by using a CDN.

Realization #4: Node.js scales on a per processor basis as well as across servers.

There seem to be many success stories out there for Node.js but like with any technology it must be applied properly. Just like every other programming framework there will be efficient code and poor performing code. Anyone using Node.js will eventually need to troubleshoot their application(s) for performance and scalability issues and that is where Nodetime comes into play. If you’re currently using or are planning to use Node.js for an application you should either read this blog on monitoring Node.js or just jump right over to the Nodetime website and start your free trial today.

About Author

Jim Hirschauer is a Technology Evangelist for AppDynamics. He has an extensive background working in highly available, business critical, large enterprise IT operations environments. Jim has been interested in application performance testing and monitoring since he was a Systems Administrator working in a retail bank. His passion for performance analysis led him down a path where he would design, implement and manage the cloud computing monitoring architecture for a top 10 investment bank. During his tenure at the investment bank, Jim created new processes and procedures that increased overall code release quality and dramatically improved end user experience.

It surely is but, why do YOU think its a great tutorial? It does not matter Ruby or PHP or ASP.NET whatever..Node.js is faster and none of them is event driven as well. And this all is clearly told in this Article…

Cesar Falcao

Wow, hi Sami, I just noticed your reply today. I think it’s a good article, by the way. I’m just started learning about Node.js, I’m no dev at all, and in a lot of posts from Ruby (since its has 10 years or so) preach that Ruby is more mature and such. I like Node, I just wanted to know the author opinion. Today, after great projects like Kraken.js from Paypal, I prefer Node.js. Cheers.

Jim – thanks for posting this. I know there is a lot of stuff out there about what is Node.js and why it is important, but not a whole lot written towards helping non-developers like myself get a better understanding of it.